


Trouble is Our Business

by kikabennet



Category: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Genre: Adoption, Established Harry/Perry, Established Relationship, Father Figures, Fatherhood, Gay dads, M/M, Uncle-Niece Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 11:59:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10639401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kikabennet/pseuds/kikabennet
Summary: After the death of his brother, Harry and Perry bring Chloe back to Los Angeles and raise her.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Ohhhh....I miss the KKBB fandom. Where are you guys? Anyway, I hope you enjoy this story/series. Please feel free to ask any questions or throw my any ideas in the comment section. I always respond to any and and all comments because if you make the effort to comment, I make the effort to respond. Thanks!

It was a quiet Saturday evening when he got the call. Harry had just got up to pour some more wine.

“You want anything, Babe?” He called from the kitchen.

“I'm good, thanks,” I called back. “On second thought, pour me a glass.”

We'd been dating for nearly eleven months now. It's shocking, I know, but to be honest, I wasn't all that surprised when I first kissed Harry, and he'd kissed me back. Everything and everyone was so fake in Los Angeles that it was nice to have something real with somebody. Even before Harry brought up the boyfriend idea, our friendship was genuine. It was _home_. 

Harry had slipped into the boyfriend role easily, gradually dropping nicknames like “Per” and moving to “Babe” and “Honey”.

He returned to the wrap around sofa with two glasses of wine and wriggled up against me, carefully balancing them as he passed one over to me. His hair smelled like conditioner. My conditioner. The conditioner that I scrubbed through his hair the last time we showered together. 

I unpaused the movie and it had just started to get good again when Harry's phone vibrated loudly on the coffee table, startling us both. I paused the movie again. Harry leaned forward and picked up the phone, his brows furrowing as he stared at the screen.

“I don't recognize the number,” he said, putting it back down.

I unpaused the movie once more. Harry's phone buzzed again against his thigh. 

“Same number?” I asked.

“Yeah.” Harry frowned and answered it, his eyes glued to the TV screen. “Hello?”

His brows dipped again. 

“Yeah, this is Harry Lockhart.”

He looked at me.

“Yes, officer,” he said. 

Officer? That didn't sound good. I watched as Harry's expression change from confusion to horror.

“When?” He asked loudly, sitting up straighter.

I mouthed, 'what happened?' 

“I'll uh...” Harry stood up, tugging nervously at his hair. His voice clotted. “I'll be on the next flight out.”

He hung up and looked at me. I stood up and asked, out loud this time, “What happened?”

Harry opened his mouth, but no words came out. He shook his head.

“Will's dead,” he said.

Will. Harry's brother. I'd met the guy once right after I met Harry. Jenna's funeral. Embrey, Indiana. He was Harry's older brother by six years. Had a kid, Chloe, who Harry adored.

“Jesus,” I said, embracing Harry. 

“Car accident,” Harry said with a sharp inhale. “He died on the way to the hospital.”

He started crying then. Harry was a very quiet crier, but I could tell by the way he buried his face in my chest and how he shook against me that he was sobbing.

I kissed the top of his head and rubbed his back.

“Chloe,” Harry choked out suddenly, pushing himself out of my embrace. “We gotta go get Chloe.”

I nodded.

“We'll get Chloe,” I assured him. 

Harry still had left over sedatives from his last injury (a metal bat to the knee) that I kept locked up. I gave him one and stroked his hair as we laid in bed together, Harry softly crying himself to sleep. 

After he was out, and out cold, I got on my phone and and bought two flights and a rental car.

 

I let Harry sleep in until we absolutely had to get ready to leave the next morning. He was still in a half conscious state on the way to the airport and slept the duration of the flight. He needed the sleep for sure. 

Once we landed in Indianapolis, we picked up the rental and started the two hour drive to the tiny  _dot-on-the_ map town of Embrey. Harry was awake now, sitting solemnly in the passenger seat. 

“Call your parents?” I asked him. “They know?”

“I'm sure they do,” Harry murmured, rubbing his tired, sore eyes. 

Harry and his parents didn't really see eye to eye. His father, like mine, hadn't been the best dad and spent years drinking and beating his kids. His mom had sort of turned a blind eye to it, and the second Harry got word that Harmony had jumped ship to LA, he took the next bus out to New York City. I loved hearing Harry tell me that story. A young seventeen year old high school drop out, sitting on a bus going to the big apple, a coffee canister full of bills in his lap. Harry told me he had dreams of being a magician. Of course, street magic hadn't been enough to pay the rent and magic turned into stealing and making the wrong friends and marrying the wrong woman which had all, in some bizarre turn of events, had brought him to me. 

Harry's brother, Will, eventually moved to New York as well and made the same mistake-marrying a girl he barely knew, only there was a baby in the mix. Will and Harry had been sharing a two bedroom apartment at the time, and the baby's mother had scribbled a note one evening that she couldn't live an 'enclosed' life and so Will was left to raise Chloe alone. Harry helped him, and he told me he was good with babies and kids (probably because he acted like one), but when Chloe was nearly five, Will gave up on his big city dreams, packed up Chloe, and moved back to Embrey.

Harry, of course, ended up in LA with me, and soon after  _with_ me, which did not go over well with his folks. Will hadn't cared. Harry had phoned him last, prepared for the worst after his father had really let him have it over the phone and his mother had bitterly said, 'what else could go wrong?' 

Will had just said, 'okay, did you know Chloe learned how to do a cartwheel today?' 

When we made it to Harry's parents house, the house I frowned at as we pulled up thinking of little boy Harry getting chased around with a belt by his drunk father, I turned to grown up Harry in the passenger seat.

“It's gonna be alright, Chief,” I told him, kissing the corner of his mouth.

We got out of the car and went inside to where people were already gathered. Neighbors, other family, Harry's parents, and Chloe. She was sitting by herself on a fat stuffed sofa, feet dangling. She was nine now, but small for her age. She was dressed in jeans, a t shirt, sweater, and had a messy braid under a baseball cap. She raised her eyes at us as we walked into the living room, large dark eyes that matched her uncle's. 

“Harry,” Mrs. Lockhart said, moving to give her son a quick hug and forehead kiss. The only kind he got since he'd come out as gay, or bi, or whatever he told them.

“Mom.” Harry hugged her back. 

Mr. Lockhart gave him a one-armed hug and said, “The doctors said he probably didn't feel any pain.”

Both of them shook my hand, but we weren't kidding one another. They didn't like me, and I didn't really care for them. 

Harry spoke with his parents a little longer and then turned his attention to Chloe, moving to sit next to her on the couch. I followed him.

“Hey, Sweetheart,” he said, sitting down and she immediately latched onto him. He kissed her and stroked some of her hair. 

 

After two nights in the God-awful “town inn” and the funeral, Harry and I spent one more day in his childhood home. His mother was fixing soup and cold cuts for lunch. A typical small town treat, I guessed. 

“So about Chloe,” Harry said, passing me a bottle of water from the fridge. “What's going to happen to her?”

Chloe was currently with her late father's girlfriend, who had already made plans to move back to Chicago. She had not offered to let Chloe go with her. 

“She can stay here with us,” Mr. Lockhart said, taking a swig from his beer can. “God knows her mother isn't gonna turn up any time soon.”

Harry looked at me, and I nodded. I had already decided long before the funeral that Chloe could live with us. After all, she was important to Harry, and Harry was important to me. 

“We have a pretty nice place in Los Angeles,” Harry told them. “We'd be more than happy to have Chloe come and stay with us.”

“Great school district,” I chimed in flatly.

Mrs. Lockhart glanced warily at her husband. 

“She'll be fine here,” she said, giving us a big fake smile. 

“No offense, Mom,” Harry said, pushing his plate away, and his chair. “Will and I didn't have the best childhood in this house.”

He looked pointedly at his father, who stared back at him, nursing his beer can. 

“Oh please,” he said. “You're gonna tell me you and Will were what? Abused? All because you got your ass beat when you acted up?”

“You beat the shit out of us,” Harry reminded him. “We didn't have to act up. We just had to be in the house when you were having a bad day.”

He said it calmly, and that made me want to hold his hand. I remembered the days when my own father would get angry at my mother, and hit me. 

“That was years ago!” Mrs. Lockhart sighed, shaking her head. 

“I didn't know childhood trauma had an expiration date,” Harry said, standing up. 

“I obviously didn't whoop you hard enough,” Mr. Lockhart said. “You still grew up to be a fag.”

Harry's eyes moved toward his mother, but she pretended to busy herself with imaginary kitchen chores. He stood up and said, “We're taking Chloe.”

“No goddamn grandchild of mine is gonna be whisked away to Hollywood to be raised by a couple of queers,” Mr. Lockhart said. 

“Get a lawyer,” I told him, proud of Harry for being so assertive. “I'll get all five of mine. We'll take it to court. Settle it like grown ups.”

 

“I should have asked,” Harry said as we drove to Will's house to get Chloe. “Shit. I'm sorry, Perry.”

“Harry,” I told him, reaching over to squeeze his hand. “It's no problem. I want Chloe to stay with us.”

When we got to Will's house, Olivia, his girlfriend, was inside boxing things up. She smiled and pushed her glasses up to her nose. 

“Hey,” she said. “Just getting ready to move back to the windy city.”

“Where's Chloe?” Harry asked.

“Backyard,” Olivia said. 

We went out to the backyard where Chloe was sitting inside of an old tire swing, her sneakers scraping the dirt underneath. It was the most small mid-western town scene I'd ever seen. Harry walked up behind her and took hold of the rope with two hands, making it stop. Chloe looked up at him.

“I'm gonna have to live with Grandma and Gramps,” she said sullenly. 

Harry squatted down on the balls of his feet, looking into her large brown eyes with his. 

“They want me to act like a 'lady',” she added bitterly. 

Harry had told me about Chloe being a stereotypical tomboy. She didn't wear dresses, didn't play with dolls. She liked action figures and sports. 

“Chloe?” I asked, walking up to them. “How would you like to live on the beach?”

Chloe looked at me. God, she could be Harry's kid. 

“Perry and I were thinking it might be nice to take you back home with us,” Harry told her. “We have a big house, could fix you up a room.”

Chloe looked down at her dingy shoes. 

“I miss my dad,” she squeaked before starting to cry. 

Harry pulled her out of the tire and into his arms, kissing her. 

“I know,” he said. He looked at me and I shrugged. I had no idea how to console a child. 

The three of us went inside and Harry wet a paper towel and handed it to Chloe to clean her face. I fixed her a glass of water. Olivia looked at us.

“She's gonna go back to LA with us,” Harry told her.

“Oh.” Olivia blinked. “Well, Chloe, you're welcome to visit me in Chicago over the summer.”

 

I was alone twice at the airport with Chloe. Both times were because Harry was in the men's room. The first time was just plain awkward. And silent. The second time, Chloe braved up and decided to speak to me.

“So you're a real detective?” She asked.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“It's not like on TV, huh?” She asked, her eyes smiling, her nose squinching up. God, she was cute.

“No.” I couldn't help, but smile. “It's pretty boring at times, actually. A lot of paper work.”

“Do you like super heroes?” She asked. 

“I like Batman,” I told her. “He made me want to be a detective, actually.”

“I like Iron Man,” she replied. “He makes me want to be a billionaire.”

I started laughing, and so did she. Harry returned to the gate and looked between us, smiling. 

“What's so funny?” He asked.

Chloe shrugged and tugged at his hand and he lowered himself so she could whisper in his ear. 

“Sure,” he said. 

I looked between them.

“I'm gonna go get something to drink,” she said, walking away.

“What?” I asked Harry. “What did she ask?”

“She wants to sit next to you on the plane,” Harry said, his eyebrows raised.

I guess my face gave away my confusion because Harry snorted and said, “She likes you.”

\-------------

The flight back to LA was short and once we were back home, the three of us were exhausted. Normally, this would be the perfect opportunity for us to have slow, lazy afternoon sex. I thought about it, eyeing Harry as he dropped his bag near the sofa with a yawn and collapsed onto the couch, but the thought quickly left my head when Chloe collapsed beside him. 

I tried to think if there was anything I could offer her. We had bottles of water and a variety of expensive liquor. No chocolate milk or orange juice. We didn't really keep a lot of snacks in the house either. 

"Come on." Harry said, slapping Chloe's knee. "I'll give you the tour."

I followed them around the house as Harry showed her all three bathrooms, the office, the back patio, the front patio, and the kitchen. Chloe twirled her finger in her braid, biting her bottom lip, kicking the toe of her shoe against the hard floor shyly. 

"This way," I told her, and even Harry looked at me questioningly. 

The guest room had its own bathroom. It was done in very uninteresting colors with scarce furniture, so it didn't scream kid-friendly either. We stood in the open doorway.

"This will be your room," I told her. "Once you get settled in, we'll re-do the paint and get you a nicer bed and a dresser..."

Chloe went inside and gingerly sat on the guest bed. She looked at us and nodded appreciatively. 

"Thank you, Uncle Perry," she said in a small voice. 

\-------------

"My fucking parents, Man," Harry growled, shaking his head as he stripped down to his boxers. 

I sat on the bed, watching him. I had given Chloe my spare laptop to entertain herself for the night. The three of us had gone to dinner to a nice beachfront restaurant and then to a movie. Chloe seemed pretty good about not being up our asses-the way I imagined most kids were, and once we were back home and it was bedtime, she'd told us goodnight and shut the door.

"They're not going to try and get her," I assured him. "They would have already tried before we flew back."

"Did you see her when we got there?" Harry asked, sliding into bed next to me. "Sitting on the couch all by herself."

He laid down and sighed, throwing one arm up and over his head on the pillow. He turned his head to look at me. 

"I'm all she's got," he told me. 

I laid down too and kissed him.

"Well, she has me now too, Fuckhead," I told him affectionately. 

Harry smiled a little through the kiss and pulled back.

"Perry," he said, shifting a little. "I need to know now before things get out of hand. Is it really okay that she's here? I mean, this isn't a temporary thing. This is the long haul. Chloe's nine. It's not like she'll be out the door and on her own in the next couple of years."

I didn't know what to say to that. I've never been one to think about children. I thought of children as sticky and needy and loud and whiney and...well, everything Harry was. I actually enjoyed Harry, though. It was kind of nice to have someone so wired to keep me on my toes. 

"Well, Harry," I finally said, propping myself up. He mirrored my posture so we were looking at each other at eye-level.

"Things are going to have to change," I told him. "You know that."

"What things?" Harry asked.

"You're gonna have to lay off almost getting us killed all the time," I told him. "We're going to have to limit sex to the bedroom."

Harry smiled, laying back down on his side.

"The office is still okay, though, right?" He asked. "I really like it when you bend me over your desk and fuck me into the next week."

"The office...yeah, okay," I agreed. "There'll be school nights now. There'll be PTA meetings and sports games to sit through..."

"Perry Van Shrike." Harry grinned at me. "You're enjoying this."

I looked at him.

"Tell me you never wanted a kid," he said.

"I didn't," I told him. "But I've kept you alive, so she shouldn't be too hard."

Harry rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. 

"When me and Will lived together in New York," he said. "I was jobless. A lot. But it worked out because he couldn't really afford the rent and daycare and all of the expensive shit Julia wanted."

I waited for him to continue. He seemed to be dipping into these blurry memories.

"I took Chloe everywhere," he said. "All around the city, to the parks, you know? And she's a great kid. It broke my heart when he took her back to Indiana."

I remembered Harry telling me the story of how he got to LA in the first place. He'd been trying to steal a Cyber Commander action figure for Chloe after hours in an upscale toy store. 

\------------

I got up in the middle of the night, clumsily moving around in the dark to find some pajama pants. Harry and I had one good fuck before we went to sleep and even though her room was far away from ours, we'd worried about being too loud. I'd kept putting my hand over Harry's mouth because he was a noisy son of a bitch. Not that I usually minded. I threw a bathrobe on over my pajama pants and made my way into the hall. I heard something downstairs in the living room. 

When I got down stairs, I saw a shadowy figure on the sofa. I turned on the light. In my half sleep state, I'd almost forgotten about the third person in my house. Chloe turned around abruptly, her eyes wet and her face tear-stained. 

"Oh," I said. "I'm sorry...I..."

Chloe wiped at her eyes quickly. I moved closer, unsure of what to say. Should I go wake Harry? He always slept so soundly after sex, who even knows if he'd wake up. 

"Did I wake you up?" She asked.

"No," I told her. "I was coming down here anyway to get a glass of water."

I went into the kitchen and poured two glasses of water instead of one. I brought the second one to her and sat next to her on the couch. She held the glass with two hands, taking little sips. 

"Dad was on a business trip in Florida for a week," she said. "He was on his way back home when he got hit. They said it was dark and raining and the roads were just too wet."

I nodded.

"I never even got to say goodbye to him," she said, and broke down sobbing, the glass slipping from her hands and shattering on the floor. 

"It's okay," I said quickly, setting my glass on the coffee table. "No, don't step in it."

I picked Chloe up under the arms-she was hysterical by this point- and moved her away from the broken glass. I went to get the broom and dustpan and cleaned up the mess. Chloe was still crying, hard. 

"Listen," I told her, guiding her back to the couch. "The important thing is that you loved your dad, and he loved you."

Chloe nodded, wiping her eyes with the back of her hands. 

"Harry and I are going to take really good care of you," I told her. "I think that's what he would want, right?"

Chloe nodded again. 

I eyed the TV. 

"I have some super hero movies," I told her. "Want to watch one?"

Chloe looked toward the stairs. 

"Will we wake up Uncle Harry?" She asked worriedly.

I had to fight back a snort. 

"A parade could come through the house and he'd sleep through it," I told her. 

I neglected to tell her about the time one of our clients- a double crossing client- had hired a bunch of goons to break into my house and rough me and Harry up real good. Harry had been half asleep the whole time until he was getting tased and beat with a bat. 

"How about Iron Man?" I asked her, looking through my DVD collection.

"Do you have the Avengers?" She asked, making herself comfortable on the couch.

"Um...yes, actually, I do," I said, pulling it out from the shelf.

As the movie started, Chloe suddenly asked me something I never expected her to ask. 

"Are you and Uncle Harry going to get married?" She asked.

It really threw me off guard.

"Married?" I asked. "Did he say anyth-"

"I was just wondering," she asked. 

"I mean, we might one day," I said, suddenly realizing I had never given it much thought. Marry Harry? Hell, by LA standards, we were married. Living together for over a year without murdering one another. 

Chloe laughed at every funny comment I made through the movie and once I accidentally dropped the F-bomb and that made her laugh really hard. She asked me if she could say the 'f-word' too. 

"I just don't get why kids aren't allowed to say those words," she said. 

I'd often wondered that myself. My mother had been very big on my not saying swear words, even in college. 

"I'll tell you what," I told her, like I was speaking to Harry. "As long as you understand that those words aren't always appropriate-depending on where you are and who you're around-you can swear like a fucking sailor in this house."

I guess the seriousness of my tone made her smile. We got back to watching the movie and at one point she made me laugh out loud when she said, "Fucking Loki, man."

\----------------

"Perry?" Harry asked as we got out of the shower together. "Why did you tell Chloe she could say 'fuck' around the house?"

I towel-dried his hair. 

"You don't want her to?" I asked.

"It's a little weird when your niece asks you 'what the fuck is that guy on the news talking about'," he replied, turning around to snatch the towel out of my hands so he could finish drying his body. 

"Harry, she's going through some stuff, remember?" I said. "She just lost her dad, she just got moved out to California to live with her gay uncle and his beau. Letting her swear freely...it gives her a sense of control."

Harry cocked his head at me. "Really? You think?"

"I told her it's an at-home deal," I added. "Don't worry. She's not like you, she'll remember."

Harry rolled his eyes playfully and went into the bedroom to get dressed. As he pulled on his underwear he asked, "So you and Chloe are getting along, huh?"

"She's a good kid," I said neutrally. 

"Yeah, great kid," Harry said.

 

\-------------------

A few days later we were shopping for new paint and furniture. Chloe wanted dark, earthy colors in her room and the colors she picked out weren't bad at all. Deep Sea and Limestone. We ordered her a bed and dresser online and a glass cabinet to keep all of her collectibles on. I also got her a desk and her own television and computer. After that, we had more work to do.

"School," I told Harry one evening as we prepared for bed. "We need to look around and decide where to enroll her."

"Doesn't it just go by district?" Harry asked. 

"That's how you want to set up her education? Really?" I frowned. 

We toured four schools before settling on The Willow School, a nice private school with a variety of sports available to play. The uniforms were a little bland. Khaki or black pants and polo shirts with an emblem, but the school itself had great reviews. 

"Perry, this is fucking expensive," Harry said, looking over the brochure. 

"It's fine," I told him. 

\--------------

I felt like I was caring for Harry all over again as we prepared for Chloe's first day of school. I had her in the bathroom, fixing her hair. She had thick, dark beautiful hair like Harry that fell past her shoulders. I watched a few tutorials online and put it in a nice, neat fishtail braid. Chloe kept touching it. 

"You look great, Sweetheart," Harry said, serving her breakfast- toast and oatmeal.

"What if the other kids don't like me?" She asked, sitting at the kitchen bar. 

"They'll like you," I assured her. "Eat your breakfast, Kid."

It was actually kind of exciting to drive her to school and walk her into the office. Harry talked the receptionist's ear off like Chloe was four instead of nine and this was daycare instead of elementary school. I had to pull him out by the arm before he made a fool of himself. 

"Have a good day," He told Chloe, kissing her. 

Chloe looked at me. 

"You're gonna do great," I told her, also kissing her.

Chloe smiled.

\----------------

Chloe had been with us for nearly a month and it was starting to bother me. Not her being with us. I enjoyed that. It was the same feeling I had when Harry first moved in. What was bothering me was the lawyer that constantly called from Indiana. Legally, as it turned out, Harry's parents had custody rights, according to Will's last will and testament. Of course, they hadn't really been trying to fight it, but still.

"I want to fight for custody," I told Harry after sex.

"Say again?" Harry panted, and I kissed the corner of his mouth.

"Chloe, Idiot," I told him. "I want to adopt her."

Harry pushed me off and sat up, running a hand through his damp hair. I stared at him.

"What?" I asked.

"I don't think I've ever been more in love with you than I am at this moment," he said.

I rolled my eyes. 

 

\----------------------

 

To Be Continued...

 

 


End file.
